In the ancient history of war, siege and defense of the city are often the most common factors, because whether it is the East and the West, the war is nothing more than grain and population and other resources, and when the war comes, the people and grain and grass will be harvested into the city. Therefore, siege warfare is also indispensable.
Perhaps everyone will find that the most critical decision to win or lose the siege is still grain and grass, as long as you wait for the city to run out of food, you will naturally fight and chaos, so as to avoid greater casualties of the attacking enemy. But another topic is, what if the soldiers in the city finish shooting arrows?
First of all, I want to explain to you that the ancient way of defending the city is not the same as on the TV series, a row of people standing on the city wall, shooting arrows at the bottom is finished, because it is often invaded by nomadic people, and the Central Plains have also developed a set of their own experience in defending the city.
The city wall is not a bare wall, but a deep defensive system, above the city wall, there are special archery towers for crossbowmen, the city wall has a high platform, a trebuchet, and a large bed crossbow, and under the city wall there are sheep and horse walls, moats, and horse stakes to prevent the advance of enemy infantry.
When the enemy is attacking the city, the gates are not closed, many relatively small gates are open, which is conducive to the defenders to rush to support in time, they try their best to prevent the enemy from destroying the opportunity of the city wall, and the soldiers who defend the city will wait in a strict position inside the sheep and horse wall to wait for work.
As for the weapons defending the city, not only bows and arrows, including rolling wood stones, arrows throwing guns, pushing rods and wolf teeth, and boiling water or gold juice, have become the weapons of defending the city, in fact, rolling stones, and boiling water, is not something long-yi preparation, the historical records record that every time the city is attacked, the defenders must "uncover the house and demolish the tiles". What is this for? It was the equipment that prepared the defense of the city. But anything with weight, thrown off the city walls, can kill and injure the enemy.
As for the problem of insufficient arrows, the wisdom of the ancients was convincing, and a general came up with a good way, he was Zhang Tour of the Tang Dynasty. In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, the An Shi Rebellion occurred, an Lushan rebels under the leadership of Ling Huchao, a total of more than 40,000 people, the momentum of the storm pounced on Yongqiu, Zhenyuan County Ling Zhang Tour was not willing to surrender, he recruited more than 1,000 brave soldiers, guard here, so that Fox Tide will surround Yongqiu a water leak, several attacks, were repelled by Zhang Tour's random arrows.
However, as the days go by, seeing that the arrows are about to run out, how can this be good? He had a good idea, and late one night, the head of Yongqiu City was pitch black, and it seemed that a dense black shadow was climbing down the rope.
This matter was quickly obtained by Ling Fox Chao, who thought that Zhang Tour did not put down the suspension bridge, he must have wanted to take advantage of the night, the gods unconsciously fled, so he hurriedly ordered his men to release arrows, and heard a shout at the head of the city, which made Fox Tide shoot more vigorously. However, when the sky turned white, he found that the original wall was hung with straw men, and zhang patrol commanded the soldiers, shouted loudly, and lifted and lowered the straw man back and forth, and as a result, in one night, he took hundreds of thousands of arrows.
This story was later borrowed by Luo Guanzhong into the allusion of "grass boat borrowing arrows".
However, it is a pity that even zhang tour such a defensive expert, in the end in the anshi rebellion of the most tragic Suiyang defense battle to die in the wang shi, in the face of the rebel siege, Zhang Tour led the Tang Dynasty soldiers and civilians to hold out for several months, grain and grass ran out, eat horses, tree roots, and finally developed to the point of cannibalism, until the rebels broke through the city gate, there were only more than 400 people left in the city, which shows that the ancient defense of the city, the most important thing is grain and grass.